Peer group training of pragmatic skills in adolescents with acquired brain injury

To empirically evaluate a method of treating adolescents with cognitive communication disorders, including pragmatic deficits, secondary to acquired brain injury (ABI) in a group setting by objectively measuring outcomes before treatment and immediately after treatment and at 6 months posttreatment.

A before-after trial with follow-up in a consecutive sample, with no control group.

Inpatient and outpatient pediatric rehabilitation center.

Adolescents who demonstrated pragmatic deficits and scored a rating of 3 or less on each subdomain of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Rating Scale of Pragmatic Communication Skills (RICE-RSPCS) were eligible for the study. Eight subjects were recruited into the study, and two subjects were lost to follow-up. Thus, six of the eight completed the study.

RICE-RSPCS, Communication Performance Scale (CPS).

Clinically relevant and statistically significant (P <.01) changes occurred during the treatment and were maintained at follow-up for the four RICE-RSPCS subscales and the CPS.

These results suggest that the potential and often typical long-term pragmatic and subsequent social difficulties associated with ABI can possibly be lessened through effective intervention.